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A Salt Lake County police log said the suspect walked into the Lopez Tires mechanics' garage in Salt Lake City on 27 November with a metal pipe. He declared he was going to kill someone before attacking.

The family told the Salt Lake Tribune that Mr Covington had been shouting slurs before the attack, saying "I hate Mexicans" and asking if the Lopez's were "part of the Mexican Mafia" prison gang.

He hit Luis first, knocking him unconscious, the family said. When Jose tried to protect his son, he was hit as well.

Luis remains in hospital recovering from serious injuries.

On a GoFundMe page to raise money for the family's medical bills, Jose Lopez's daughter Veronica wrote that doctors had to operate on her brother, using a titanium plate to hold his "shattered" face together.

Her father had eight stitches in his arm and bruising to his back, she added.

What are hate crime laws like across the US?

In the US, hate crimes are generally defined as bias-motivated physical attacks. Hate crime charges can seriously increase the severity of a sentencing as they are considered attacks on an individual, a community and society.

In Utah, a bill that would allow state judges to prosecute felonies as hate crimes has stalled for the third time.

Mr Gill told the BBC the state had 94 possible hate crimes last year - but only one could be prosecuted at the federal level.

Most states have some form of hate crime laws, but five - Georgia, South Carolina, Wyoming, Indiana and Arkansas - do not have any hate crime statutes at all.

Only 17 have laws covering sexual orientation and gender biases, and 16 do not expressly cover either, according to Family Equality Council, an LGBT advocacy group.

In such states, local authorities must have the FBI and other federal agencies prosecute bias-motivated cases instead.

Hate crimes in the US rose by 17% in 2017, the third straight year that incidents have increased, according to the FBI.